Article Text
Abstract
Objective To describe the epidemiology of sports injury at the Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games.
Methods 567 athletes from 49 countries were monitored daily for 12 days over the Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games (6804 athlete days). Injury data were obtained daily from teams with their own medical support (41 teams and 557 athletes) and teams without their own medical support (8 teams and 10 athletes) through two electronic data capturing systems.
Results 112 of 567 athletes (19.8%) reported a total of 142 injuries, with an injury incidence rate (IR) of 20.9 per 1000 athlete days (95% CI 17.4 to 25.0). The highest IR was reported for para snowboard (IR of 40.5 per 1000 athlete days [95% CI 28.5 to 57.5]; p<0.02), particularly in the lower limb and head/face/neck anatomical areas. Across all sports at the Games, acute traumatic injuries (IR of 16.2 per 1000 athlete days [95% CI 13.2 to 19.8]) and injuries to the shoulder/arm/elbow complex (IR of 5.7 per 1000 athlete days [95% CI 4.2 to 7.8]) were most common. However, most injuries (78.9%) did not require time loss.
Conclusion The new Paralympic Winter Games sport of Para snowboard requires attention to implement actions that will reduce injury risk. The shoulder was the most injured single joint—a consistent finding in elite para sport.
- paralympic
- impairment
- disability
- injury
- international sporting events
- athletes
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Footnotes
Contributors All authors have contributed to the development, application and write up of the current study. Each author has completed a Conflicts of Interest form.
Funding Funding for this study was provided by the IOC Research Centre South Africa grant and International Paralympic Committee research support.
Competing interests All authors have declared competing interests.
Ethics approval Ethics board approval for this study was granted by the Research Ethics Committees of the University of Brighton (FREGS/ES/12/11) and Stellenbosch University (N16/05/067).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No data are available.
Patient consent for publication Not required.